You know the drill.
A lead comes in. They ask for a quote. You send it.
Next thing you know, it’s ghost town, or worse, you get told “someone else can do it cheaper.”
And you start doing the maths in your head:
👉 “Should I shave a bit off to win the job?”
👉 “Maybe I’ll throw in a little extra, just this once.”
👉 “That’s just how it is these days, right?”
But what if that is the reason you’re?
Not the economy.
Not the competition.
Not the market.
The way you’re framing your value is what’s keeping you in the grind.
Here’s the truth: People don’t buy what you do. They buy what it means for them.
They just don’t always know how to put it into words and that’s your job.
If you wait until the end of a conversation to try and justify your price, you’re already behind. By then, they’ve already decided what you’re worth.
You have to earn your value position early.
And that starts before the quote, before the proposal, right at the start of the conversation.
Let’s say you're a plumber quoting a hot water system install.
Your client thinks they’re buying a product and a couple of hours of labour. That’s the surface-level view.
But what are they really trying to solve?
When you talk about reliability, response times, the long-term performance of what you recommend, you shift the focus.
It’s not “who can do it cheaper,” it becomes “who can make this problem go away properly.”
That’s value. That’s what justifies your price.
When you build value into the early conversation:
Price will always be part of the conversation, that’s reality.
But it doesn’t have to be the only part.
If you’re sick of being stuck in the cost comparison game, maybe it’s time to stop playing that game altogether and start changing the
conversation.